"He instinctively can find the shining greatness of our American culture and does a good job of highlighting it (although he also does have those rare lapses when he writes about hockey, but that is something caused by impurities in the Eastern waters or something)."Erik Keilholtz

Under the patronage of St. Tammany

Mark C. N. Sullivan is an editor at a Massachusetts university. He is married and the father of three children.Email

Mel Gibson vents about Jews during a drunken traffic-stop. Rachel Corrie's friends blow up Jews on buses. But Alan Rickman's play romanticizing the latter is a hit in London and New York.

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I've enjoyed the Harry Potter books, but the last two movies, not so much. The casting of the upcoming installment won't improve matters, from my point of view. From now on when I see Snape I'll think terrorist-enabling moonbat.

Meantime, in my mind's eye Dolores Umbridge is a sort of toad woman, like a creatures from Spirited Away. On the screen she'll be portrayed by Imelda Staunton, who previously won critical acclaim for her portrayal of a saintly martyr of a 1950s abortionist. Now when I see Dolores Umbridge I'll think monster of a different sort.

They're actors, I know, I know. But it can be hard these days to separate the performers from their (often-hackle-raising) politics.